Dear Partner in Preaching,
John 3:16, everyone’s favorite Bible verse. But I’ve wondered whether, if people thought about what this verse says for just a little longer than it takes to read a bumper sticker, it might just prove to be one of our least favorite verses in the Bible. Let me explain.
Jesus articulates in this statement what Luther called “the Gospel in a nutshell” – that God is fundamentally a God of love, that love is the logic by which the kingdom of God runs, and that God’s love trumps everything else, even justice, in the end.
I realize not everyone reads it this way. After all, Jesus says “everyone who...

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”
One more thought on Jesus’ declaration that his kingdom is not of this world....

Dear Partner in Preaching,
Yes, I have the Academy Awards on my mind. Actually, I only watched a bit of the program this past Sunday evening and have not seen all the contenders for best film yet. But of the various moments of the show I did catch, one helped me articulate what I think is the heart of not just this week’s passage but the whole of the Gospel. It was the song “Glory” from Ava DuVernay’s film Selma, and what struck me was how the song writers John Legend and Common described the march to Selma in the terms of glory.
Think about that for a moment. That march, along with the larger struggle for civil rights, was...

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
And, at last, we’ve arrived. John 3:16 is, quite literally, the most famous verse in the Bible. It has been translated into more languages than any other piece...

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate. For I tell you, you will not...

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his...

Dear Partner in Preaching,
Given the choice, which would you choose, love or justice?
I know this is a hard choice, as both are really important. So if you’re anything like me, you understandably want both. And yet every once in while, we are forced to make a choice. And that can feel really, really hard. I think that’s part of what is going on in this quite remarkable parable. You know the contours of this story as well as I do, but lets tarry for a few moments at the climatic moments of the story.
Let’s first put ourselves in the place of the workers who were chosen last. Likely they had all but given up hope for work that day and...

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the lake. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed,...

What is the difference between love and acceptance? Between disease and personality? Between difference and identity? Andrew Solomon takes up these and other questions in this moving talk on the challenges that face parents of extraordinary children – extraordinarily different, bright, difficult, and more. But as you listen, you’ll realize he is speaking about all parents, all whose destiny is held captive by the fate and fortunes of their children.
Based on the research and interviews he conducted for this remarkable book Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity, Solomon challenges us to reconsider the ideals we...

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own...

While I am reasonably sure that most of us do not tell the ones we love just how much we love them often enough, I am absolutely sure that is true in my case. Don’t get me wrong, I say those words to my children and wife every day — often several times — and to my parents each...